The Era of Self-Care

Abstract

Relish the fact or hate it, we consumers will stand smack at the center of tomorrow’s medical world. If the next medical revolution is to progress, the people themselves will have to shoulder far more responsibility for their care. Many of the new technologies, the health-information highways, the robots, telepresence surgery, and fancy genetic fingerprinting techniques are being designed with the consumer, rather than the doctor, in mind. The technologies are set to enable patients to perform many of the tasks once conducted only by the professionals—the doctors and the nurses. These technologies promise to nudge medicine off a pedestal, making it more convenient and attainable, not to mention cheaper. Which is why the groups charged with having to shell out heftily on healthcare, the governments, insurers, and employers, are all in favor of patients swinging in the direction of handling their own affairs.